O the loveliness of that May noon, a sunny noon for once; the freshness of the beeches; the golden brown of the oaks; above all, the shimmering beauty of the young birches! It was as if the sap had just brimmed and trembled into leaves; as if each drop had thinned itself into a transparent oval of liquid green. The sight of Mrs. MacGill being dragged by Greytoria over a very distant hill was soothing in itself, or it would have been if I hadn't known Miss Evesham was toiling up beside her. We were hungry and certain of being late to luncheon, so Sir Archibald proposed food of some sort at the inn. He had cold meat, bread and cheese, and a tankard of Devonshire cider, while I had delicious junket, clouted cream, and stewed apple. Before starting on our long homeward stroll we had a cosy chat, the accessories being a fire, a black cat, and a pipe, with occasional incursions by a small maid-servant who looked exactly like a Devonshire hill pony,--strong, sturdy, stocky, heavy-footed, and tangled as to mane. We were discussing our common lack of relatives. 'I have no one but my mother and two distant cousins,' I said. The sympathetic man would have murmured, 'Poor little soul!' and the too sentimental one would have seized the opportunity to exclaim, 'Then let me be all in all to you!' But Sir Archibald removed his pipe and remarked, 'Good thing too, I dare say'; and then in a moment continued with graceful tact and frankness, 'They say you can't tell anything about an American family by seeing one of 'em.' Upon my word, the hopeless candour of these our brethren of the British Isles is astonishing. Sometimes after a prolonged conversation with two or three of them I feel like going about the drawing-room with a small broom and dust-pan and sweeping up the home truths that should lie in scattered profusion on the floor; and which do, no doubt, were my eyes as keen in seeing as my ears in hearing. However, I responded meekly, 'I suppose that is true; but I doubt if the peculiarity is our exclusive possession. None of my relatives belonged to the criminal classes, and they could all read and write, but I dare say some of them were more desirable than others from a social point of view. It must be so delicious to belong to an order of things that never questions itself! Breckenridge Calhoun says that is the one reason he can never quite get on with the men over here at first; which always makes me laugh, for in his way, as a rabid Southerner, he is just as bad.' There was quite an interval here in which the fire crackled, the black cat purred, and the pipe puffed. Sir Archibald broke the cosy silence by asking, 'Who is this Mr. Calhoun whom you and your mother mention so often?' The conversation that ensued was quite a lengthy one, but I will report as much of it as I can remember. It was like this:--